Members Monthly Bulletin - July 2022

Finance

At the first board meeting of the new financial year on 30 July a summary of our Quarter 1 results for 2022/2023 along with the accounts for 2021/22 was presented to the board for approval.

Prior to that, a meeting was held with our accountants at their offices in Stafford to receive their verdict:

‘The total income for the year showed a reduction from that in 2020/2021.  However, the charity has fared very well through the pandemic and is emerging in a healthy cash position. Now looking forward to external events coming back online and to utilising the cash reserves to progress work on the engine.’

Whilst our accountants recognise our healthy cash position, we have set the budget at the same figure as last year at £270k. We appreciate that we are all going through difficult times, but your continued financial support is needed more than ever and, as ever, very much appreciated. We are ramping up our engineering spend to ensure physical progress on the locomotive and we are certain that we’ll make a big difference to its appearance in 2022/23.

Engineering

All the replacement driving wheels have now been cast at William Cook Cast Products.  Inspection and Proof machining is well under way.

Planning for the tyre and axle supply and wheelset assembly is complete and orders have been placed for delivery later in this financial year.

Work on the testing of chassis components (in the absence of original documentation) continues: bead-blasting is 95% complete (we have had to order more material to finish the job).  Our competent volunteer started work last week on the hardness-testing programme. All parts tested returned a positive result and we await a detailed report.

The order has been placed with HBSS for the fitting of the crown stays and to finish the riveting of the steel crown.

We are in the process of providing technical information to Leaky Finders in order to progress the axle boxes/keeps.

A big thank you to the 5 willing volunteers who turned out at West Shed on Sunday 10th July to support Simon Scott for a day of hands-on work. This involved plenty of lifting - sorting and reorganising the storage of existing and scrap locomotive components - and was a great success.